Tech

If the roar of the crowd is less your style than the smell of the greasepaint, there’s a place for you in the FASS Tech Team! Whether you’ve been a part of theatre before or not, everyone is welcome. The job of the FASS Tech Team is to provide all of the technical and backstage requirements for every year’s FASS production. This includes lights, sound, sets, props, costumes, makeup…you name it, we do it. Here are some of the things we do:

Building. The UW Theatre Centre has a fully decked-out tech shop, and we have a lot of props and sets to build. Most of our small work is done in cardboard, but larger works require more hardware. And everything needs to be painted. Even the props that are supposed to look like cardboard. We just paint them brown.

Lighting . There are a lot of cool things you can do with good lighting, and the Theatre has a great setup. Lighting designers are needed to help figure out how the lighting should go, and operators are needed during the show to make that happen.

Sound. We often use sound effects to cover up that we don’t actually know what we’re doing. Sound designers are needed to choose effects (and sometimes record them!), and operators are needed to wire equipment, set levels, and run the sound effects during the show.

Costumes. FASS always has a wide variety of cruel and unusual costumes, and while many actors will go on stage in their street clothes, a few lucky stars will need more complex sewing work.

Makeup. FASS needs makeup experts for two reasons. The first, more exciting reason, is to design and apply specialty makeup for roles like aliens, monsters, and robots. The second, more boring reason, is to apply eyeliner to guys who are afraid of pencils near their eyes.

Gripping. Gripping is a technical term for “picking things up and putting them down a lot”. Grips, decked out in all black like ninjas, are the unsung heroes of any FASS show. They stay backstage to move set pieces around and make sure that everything is set up perfectly to make the best-looking scenes. It’s a lot more fun than it sounds: you get to watch the show from backstage, and you are a ninja. A ninja!

No matter your skill set or previous experience, as long as you’ve got a creative mind, a willingness to make some new friends, and aren’t afraid of a bit of paint, FASS Tech wants you!

If you’re interested in participating in tech and want to receive updates about the tech team, please email our Company Coordinator. If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact the Tech Director at td@fass.uwaterloo.ca.